Inland Belt
The Inland Belt today is a conglomerate of small city-states, most of which have no standing military or policed borders, and are largely unaffiliated with one-another, and with no definite governmental structure. These small city-states are known as "sovereigns." A sovereign is typically founded when a person or group of people is exiled from one of the World Powers, be it for heretical beliefs, medical malpractice, or any number of other distasteful crimes. Such people, having few places left in the world to go, end up in the Belt one way or another, and scrape together what land they can to call their own. Usually any given sovereign cannot be expected to exist for more than three or four years. They are either absorbed into stronger sovereigns or the inhabitants succumb to disease and starvation, dying out altogether. There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule; three sovereigns have defied the carnivorous nature of the Belt and risen to dominate it. Selbia Selbia was founded thirty-five years ago by a group of exiles from Arbus Arkad. These men were weapons technicians, and managed to bring with them an impressive amount of goods and materials at the time of their exile. As such, they were easily able to create their own weapons and establish a military superiorty over the largely unarmed Belt. Through loose allegience to Serket, their neighboring sovereign, they have continued to exist as a kind of parasite sovereign, supplying Baron Radagat, Serket's governor, with arms in exchange for food and goods. Serket A luxurious retreat for high society in the middle of a lawless no-where, Serket is unique in the Belt for a number of reasons. The self-proclaimed "Baron" Radagat was not an exile. Rather, he chose to come to the Belt to found Serket. A man of mysterious financial backing, Radagat constructed what was essentially a luxury resort in the uplands at the far eastern end of the Belt shouldering Obek. It was a massive indoor spa, casino, and five-star restaurant that came to be known as the Golden Pyramid. The Pyramid, taken even at face value, is an exotic retreat for various VIPs from around the world, but behind the scenes it serves as a hub of activity for the criminal underworld of Titan. The Inland Belt, being what it is, makes the ideal locale to indulge matters of business that would be considered less than legal elsewhere. In addition to many things, the Baron serves as an information broker to independant interests the world over. No one knows who or what his sources of information are, but it is universally agreed that there is no political secret the Baron does not know intimately. Persephone The oldest of the sovereigns at four hundred years, Persephone is the only remaining sovereign of the pre-expedition era. Though Persephone was as financially obligated to the Western Expedition as any sovereign of the time, they managed to survive the crushing blow of Arbus' independance and survive until the present. They worship their King, Vryer von Persephone, as a living god, and adhere to the followings of a strict seminary throughout their lives. Tensions betwen Persephone and Serket have been obvious since the construction of the Golden Pyramid, which King Vryer descents as a "castle of sin." The people of Persephone are Gith, and do not allow those of foreign blood to enter their nation. Solar Era 101170's- The Serket-Bellato Union and the "New Belt" In the last costal war between Arbus-Arkad and Obek, the Inland Belt played a vital role. Indeed, without the- some say coerced- approval of Baron Radagat to use portions of his coastland for the construction of a naval base and the help of Selbian scientists in cannon and black powder manufacture, it is highly unlikely that Arbus would have succeeded in much more than irritating some pirates. The combined monetary gains of these two nations are said to be close to a billion pieces of Arkadian Gold Standard. Obek did not quietly suffer their neighbors treachery, however. The backlash against the belt by the Obek navy was swift and brutal. The Selbian army was decimated and many of their southern fortifications toppled before the Obek marines decided the land war was becoming too costly and withdrew. The casualties in Serket were unprecidented and the incident caused the aged Baron to lose his contract with the extra-planar Ho-Ren mercenaries, a consequence which ultimately led to the Baron's head decorating the favored spear of an Obek Tide Reaver called Kutamba Sole. After the ten year Costal War came to a close in 101135 due in large part to the actions of the Arkadian land forces at the Checha-Tezna, the Belt's Big Three were in ruins (Persephone still recovering from an earlier conflict with Serket). Though several smaller sovereigns attempted to capitalize on the crippled state of their competition, Serket and Selbia banded together in more ways than one in order to maintain their hold on lands and resources. After a brief civil war in Selbia which overthrew the presedency in favor of a "temporary" totalitarian regime headed by a human named Urvan Bellat, Serket and the newly renamed country of Bellato joined forces to become the Serket-Bellato Union. In the ensuing years they have all but crushed Persephone, which has been reduced to a strip of mountainous badlands called by outsiders "Zealot's Ridge". As a country, they have reached a mastery of arcane powers not often seen outside of Gnosos seemingly overnight. This fact puzzles and worries many around the world. The SBU has a very friendly relationship with both Arbus and the fledgeling Obek nation of Meroei. Some suspect, however, that their relationship with Meroei goes well beyond friendship and into pure influence, as the loyalties and intentions of some of the Meroeian elders has been called into question by both Arkadians and their own citizens. Category:Places